3 Cold Email Templates to Land New Suppliers

Cold emailing is a tough gig. To send a batch of emails only to get zero responses is disheartening to say the least. But when you do finally get the response you’re looking for, there’s no feeling quite like it. In come cold email templates to the rescue!

There are ways to make those positive responses come along more regularly — and we’re about to give you the best cold email templates in the land for exactly that purpose. But first, here’s why you should always be looking for suppliers.

The Endless Search for Suppliers

Getting hold of an initial list of suppliers, is how to get your subscription box business off the ground — but your search for suppliers shouldn’t end there.

The fact of the matter is, running a business is not a smooth endeavour, and that goes for running a subscription box business, too — despite the unique benefits.

Having a bulging list of suppliers will go a long way to making your life easier when things go south.

If you’re looking for an example, picture any of these scenarios:

Your supplier can’t deliver their goods by your deadline

There’s a recall on one of your suppliers products

Your supplier can’t meet the quota of products you need

You can’t pay the price your supplier is asking for

The products you wanted are too big or too heavy for this month’s box

There are all kinds of intangibles outside of your control. For this reason it’s always smart to be working with multiple suppliers at the same time, even if you can’t use them all each and every month.

Cold Emailing Templates: Reach Out in Style

If you want positive responses, and eager suppliers, your cold emails have to tick all the right boxes.

Below you’ll find three different cold email templates you can use to reach out to your suppliers.

1. The Short and Sweet

This cold email template is all about brevity. Chances are the people you’re reaching out to don’t have a lot of time on their hands.

By keeping things short you actually show that you value their business. It’s a weird piece of psychology. If your email was long and went on and on about your company it would probably just end up in the trash can.

The template below is one that one of our merchants, BusterBox, has used to great success. They’ve agreed to gift the email template to our readers below.

Hello,

My name is [NAME] and I am the CEO of a [DESCRIPTION] subscription box service based in [LOCATION] called [BUSINESS NAME]. We send a monthly box of [PRODUCT TYPES] to [CUSTOMER TYPE].

Having looked at your products online we are very interested in getting sent prices. We have a growing subscriber count of over [SUBSCRIBER COUNT] and the boxes are shipped [weekly/monthly/quarterly].

Looking forward to hearing from you.

NAME, CEO

YourBusiness.com

2. The Past and Present

If you’ve already shipped previous boxes, then you’re going to have more email options at your disposal. For this outreach email we’re going to highlight the beauty of your past boxes to get your potential supplier on board.

If you have some really enticing images of your past boxes you can use these to get your suppliers hooked. Images connect with us in ways words can’t.

Hello,

My name is [NAME] and I am the CEO of a [DESCRIPTION] subscription box service based in [LOCATION] called [BUSINESS NAME]. We send a monthly box of [PRODUCT TYPES] to [CUSTOMER TYPE].

We’ve looked at your products and would love a price sheet.

If you’re interested, here’s a quick look at some of our past boxes.

[IMAGE OF BOX #1]

[IMAGE OF BOX #2}

Your products are a perfect fit for our [NICHE] and the theme for this month’s box.

Our subscriber count of over [SUBSCRIBER COUNT] is steadily growing and would love to expose your awesome products to our audience.

2. Use Mailshake for Super Easy Automation

Managing long-term supplier relationships can get tricky if you’re just using email. This tool lets you see if your emails have been opened, manage replies, and view your entire email history. You can even create campaigns that let you email all of your suppliers at once.

3. Go Old School with Excel

If the two tools above don’t strike your fancy, you can always kick it oldschool with excel.

When creating your spreadsheet make sure that you track the name of the company, the date you sent your initial email, their response, and further dates to follow up. You may want to create a new spreadsheet for each box you ship, so your spreadsheet doesn’t get too messy.

Before I go I wanted to leave you with one more quick tip. If you ever have a hard time finding an email for a supplier, you can use a nifty app called Hunter.io.

All you gotta do is sign up for the app and enter your website of choice. The app will work its magic and you’ll have a list of all the emails associated with the company.

Closing Words

If you’ve never done email outreach before it can be a little overwhelming. But, just remember there’s another person on the other side of the email. It’s easy to get caught up being super formal, but just be yourself.

If your email doesn’t read like a conversation, then you’re doing it wrong.

Make your email about them. Entice them with social proof, your subscribers, previous boxes, and little bit of cash and you’ll have a steady stream of solid suppliers to work with.

Now over to you. Have any questions about sending those first supplier emails? Please tweet us!